Tesla Warned Owners Not To Test Emergency Drive Away. Some Did Anyway.

One owner was reportedly hit with a $539 bill for pressing the "Activate" button (despite Tesla's warning).

Photo by: Reddit

By: Rob Stumpf

Nov 2, at 1:40pm ET

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Tesla's new Emergency Drive Away feature has gotten a lot of attention for allowing owners to peel away from a Supercharger in case of an emergency.
Despite Tesla's warning of a potential service cost associated with using the feature, some owners have decided to test what happens when they use it.
Some have gotten away with goodwill service visits, while others have forked over hundreds of dollars just for pressing the "Activate" button.

Tesla recently rolled out a new feature that will allow owners to drive away from a Supercharger in an emergency. That feature came with an asterisk that Tesla was abundantly clear about: Don't hit it unless you absolutely need to, or else.

Well, a few owners were curious about what would happen if they decided not to heed that warning and activate the feature while plugged into a Tesla Supercharger. And now, through the magic of social media, we now know exactly what happens when an owner flips the switch.

Photo by: Twitter

But first, let's talk about what we know happens when a user tries to activate Emergency Drive Away. The driver first gets a warning that requires them to acknowledge the potential for damage to both their car and the Supercharger. If they choose to hit the Activate button and proceed, the Supercharger will unlock from the charge port so the owner can hit the gas and let the charging handle break away.

Again, this is for an emergency where users need to get away, and get away fast. The cost of damage to the car and the Supercharger are probably worth the owner's safety. That's why Tesla requires that any vehicle which activates Emergency Drive Away visit a Service Center so that the car can be assessed for damage before the warning can be cleared.

One owner who decided to ignore this warning was reportedly hit with a $539 fee for Tesla's service department to inspect their car's charge port. That's despite not actually driving an inch.

Another user on Reddit reported that they wanted to test what would happen "out of curiosity." They tested it in the same way—immediately putting the car in park and not driving an inch before manually pulling the charger out of the car to avoid damaging any of the equipment.

To their surprise, the car displayed an error that could not be cleared except by Tesla service and the Supercharger was pulled out of service. Fortunately, Tesla's service marked their service inspection as "goodwill" and did not charge the driver.

Another owner reported an initial estimate of $255 but ultimately left their service appointment with a $33.15 bill. A different owner was invoiced $178.20 for an inspection following their own curiosity.

Not all tests—whether intentional or not—have been without damage. Another owner on Reddit witnessed a vehicle activate the feature at a public charger and drive away.

The charger stall can be seen flexing from the cable yank and a component hit the ground behind the car, which means that driver may not be as fortunate to receive a no-cost visit to the Service Center as some of the other beta testers have experienced.

What do you think?

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The potential bill gets even uglier if Tesla decides to begin charging for potential Supercharger repairs. Costs to the car aside, Tesla says repairing a Supercharger stall damaged by Emergency Drive Away "can be up to $25k."

There is probably room to make activation of this feature harder. But then again, Tesla may not want to make it harder to get away in an emergency. A financial penalty and mandatory post-activation service visit should (in theory) be enough to dissuade owners from activating it when they don't need to. But as we've seen from the above, that might not be the case.